High Noon in Purgatory
by Nightblood2013
Summary: A terrible mass murder leads Wynonna Earp, her sister Waverly, Agents Dolls and Officer Nicole Haught to face one of the worst Revenants Wyatt Earp ever put down.
1. Chapter 1

It was a cold night in Purgatory. The temperature had plummeted considerably when nightfall fell. A police squad car sped across the dirt road leaving a cloud of dust in its wake. Officer Collins and Officer Ryan had been called out at this god forsaken hour to a domestic disturbance out on the Brookes homestead. This had been the third call this month. Once old Mrs. Brookes had gotten into the bottle she liked to rip into her husband. All three previous calls had resulted in Officer Ryan and her partner having to forcibly separate the two before they killed each other. Despite this the Brookes refused to leave one another. People were **real** strange around here thought Officer Ryan. The police car pulled up in front of a ram-shackled cabin which looked completely deserted. They both got out of the police car and noticed something unusual. Usually they could hear the caterwauling of Mr and Ms. Brookes from miles away but now it was dead silent and there were no lights on inside. Officer Ryan looked over at Collins wondering how they should proceed. They had been partnered together for four years so they didn't need to say anything to communicate with each other. Officer Collins indicated that they should unholster their weapons. Something wasn't sitting right with either of them. Maybe they had finally killed each other but Officer Ryan doubted it. Officer Collins approached the property silently. He pointed his flashlight at the building and noticed the large slash through the wire door that hadn't been there the last time they'd called. He waved to indicate it was safe for Officer Ryan to follow. They both entered the property together, guns up.

"Mr Brookes, you called the police!" Officer Ryan called out to the apparently empty house. "We need you to identify yourself!" There was no answer.

"Mr and Ms. Brookes?" Officer Collins called as he looked through to the hallway and the back bedrooms.

A spark of light in the corner of the living room caught Officer Collins and Officer Ryan's attention.

"Mr Brookes?" Officer Ryan questioned the dark figure. But she knew that this man sitting in the arm chair even in the veiled darkness wasn't fat enough to be Mr. Brookes. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

The light of the match he lit briefly illuminated a handsome moustachioed face as he lit a pipe that hung at the side of his mouth.

"I called to report a domestic disturbance" the figure addressed the two officers; he spoke in a southern accent but from where Officer Ryan couldn't guess. The man casually sat in the armchair smoking his pipe.

"You called it in?" Officer Ryan questioned. "Where is Mr and Ms. Brookes?" she tried not to appear as unnerved as she felt on the inside and was glad to hear that her voice didn't shake when she asked the question.

"That is a question for a priest" he calmly replied, expertly blowing a smoke ring with his pipe.

Officer Ryan gave Collins a sideways glance but never allowed the shadowed man to be out of her line of vision. Neither of them liked the man's answer.

"Sir I gonna need you to put your hands up and come over here" Officer Collins directed. His gun was pointed at the shadowed figure's chest.

"Now I called you with a complaint and you don't even have the decency to answer it, I swear the law enforcement today is not what it used to be" the man drawled as he pulled out his pipe and pointed it at them.

"Sir, you need to come over here right now or I will shoot you!" Officer Collins ordered with renewed toughness.

What the hell was going on here? Officer Ryan wondered. Was he some sort of mad man?

"Okay, okay," He put his hands up to calm Collins down. "I only called because my brother and I had an argument, it got **real** heated like," He got up from his chair. His eyes looked strangely luminescent with the moonlight reflecting on them. "I swear it came right near to blows".

The man got up and walked casually over to Officer Collins who swiftly handcuffed the man. Officer Ryan let out a sigh of relief; the situation had seemed to have defused itself. She was surprised that Collins had managed to handcuff him, for a few seconds she had the crazy idea that this guy wasn't a solid being at all but an apparition. She almost laughed at herself for thinking of something so ridiculous.

"Where is your brother? Is he Mr. Brookes?" Collins questioned.

"He left after the disagreement Officer" the man calmly replied.

"What was the nature of your disagreement" asked Officer Ryan. Ryan observed the man more closely in the light of Collins flashlight. He wore old timey clothes that she saw regularly worn by Wyatt Earp groupies who came to town.

"Well you see, it was over which one of us was going to get to kill you two" he rakishly smiled.

Out on the fields from miles around there was the sound of two guns shots coming from the Brookes house. There was nobody around except for the animals to hear it.

* * *

"Now I'm going to ask you one more time and you'd better give me an answer" Wynonna Earp threatened. "Blueberry or Chocolate" she pulled out two muffins offering them to Agent Dolls.

He continued on with his paper work as if she didn't exist. His lack of humour was irritating to say the least in Wynonna's opinion. Maybe they sucked it out of him in the army; although she had met enough army guys to know that there were plenty who were up for all kinds of fun.

"You need to finish the paper work, you're the one who's generated more than half of it" Dolls ordered.

"It's not my fault the guy decided to play chicken with me and he lost" Wynonna replied, lounging in the office chair eating a chocolate muffin.

"He lost two toes you mean, its good you're a lousy shot or I'd have to explain to the Division the pile of bodies you leave in your wake" He glowered. "These accidents create unnecessary paperwork when we should be out their looking for Revenants".

"Hey you point me in the direction and I'll smoke them, me with my trusty..." Wynonna looked at her boot but her gun was missing. Where the heck was it?

Dolls returned to the paperwork "You left it next to the mayo in the fridge"

"Yeh well... it works better cold" Wynonna shirked over to the fridge to retrieve Peacemaker.

"Anyway it's been dead for five days now. No action, no gunfights, no mud wrestling, no..." Wynonna was interrupted by the appearance of her impossibly perky sister. She was quite literally a bottled ray of sunshine. While Wynonna was more of a bottle of something alcoholic.

"Did you hear?" she was practically vibrating with excitement. "I just heard on the police radio... not that I was eavesdropping or anything, I was just getting a cup of coffee and over heard it, you can't get arrested for that, can you?' Waverly wondered.

"Focus Waverly, what did you hear?" Wynonna questioned.

"Four bodies were found out by the Brookes place" she answered in a rush.

Wynonna fondly remembered the times when they were kids and Waverly would rush up to her brimming over with excitement to tell her about a cute squirrel or a baby duck and not newly discovered murdered corpses. Ah, the good old days.

Dolls quickly abandoned his paperwork "Sheriff Neadley is supposed to keep us informed if new bodies are found". Dolls looked piiisssssed.

'Yeh well, he hates your guts' Wynonna informed him of the obvious truth.

"Come on let's go" he got up and took his jacket. 'And don't forget the gun!' he shouted as he left the room.

"He's in a bad mood" Waverly observed.

"No," Wynonna pulled on her leather jacket and holstered her gun. "That's just his mood".

* * *

Wynonna and Dolls arrived at the Brookes homestead which was brimming over with police personnel. They got out of the car and Dolls immediately approached Jessica Tanner, the Chief Medical Examiner of the district who was dictating a number of things to her underlings. Wynonna walked around the house and it's out buildings to inspect the scene. There was nothing that looked particularly amiss on the outside except for the slash in the front wire door.

"Wynonna Earp, what the hell are you doing here?"

Wynonna turned around to see a furious red-faced Sheriff Neadley.

"Bird watching, you know I think I saw a red breasted cock somewhere around here, you haven't seen it have you?" she wisecracked.

"You know something Wynonna," Neadley sneered at her. "Just because you've got a John in law enforcement that's willing to give you a badge in exchange for a blowjob doesn't make you a cop".

"Really?, cause from what I've heard that's how you got the job from old Sheriff Remming, tell me what do old man balls taste like?".

Neadley's face started to blow up like one of those toads you'd find in the swamp.

"Sheriff Neadley," Agent Dolls interrupted what Wynonna considered to be one of the more polite conversations she'd ever had with Sheriff Neadley. "The Division expects you to keep me and my associates-" Dolls gave Wynonna a long warning look "abreast of the situation in Purgatory, if you don't do your job, I can't do my job and measures would be put in place to make sure that never happens again" the last part came off as an implied threat.

At this point Wynonna could practically see the fumes coming off Neadley in his rage.

"Two of my officers are dead, I'm doing everything I can to catch the basterds responsible for this" he hissed.

"Pity you didn't have the same concern when it was those women who were getting killed on the highway," Wynonna countered. "But then again they were 'just prostitutes' like you said" she looked at him with deep disgust.

His eyes narrowed. "A badge doesn't change the fact you're a crazy cu-"

Wynonna was about to jump into action when Dolls stepped in. "I suggest you get in your car and go home Sheriff, you've done all you can here" Dolls was being completely civil but there was a palpable threat to his words that was quite frightening.

The Sheriff looked like he wanted to retort but he realised he was outmatched and outranked "Just find them" he retorted and left.

"Nice guy" Dolls watched the Sheriff leave in his car.

"The best," she quipped. Wynonna gave a sideways glance at Dolls. "We're you trying to defend my honour?" she said the last part in her best impression of a southern bell.

"Get in the damn house, Earp"

They entered the house to find the place completely ransacked. The furniture was flung across the room, the curtains ripped to the ground, lamps and picture frames smashed.

"Looks like there was a party and I wasn't even invited" Wynonna whispered to herself. "What exactly happened here?"

"Some kind of altercation with Officer Ryan and Collins" Dolls examined the room. "Collins managed to fire two shots before he was killed, they found the casings in that wall" Dolls pointed out.

"What about Mr and Mrs. Brookes?" Wynonna looked around the place and noticed the lack of bodies.

Dolls walked down the short hall way to the main bedroom and opened the door "I'm guessing the Brookes were killed in their sleep, although it's hard to tell".

Wynonna walked into the bedroom behind Dolls. "Jesus Christ!" The bedroom looked like it had been painted by Picasso, if Picasso had used real human body parts in his paintings. Wynonna gagged and left the room. She was bent over double trying to control her stomach. "You could have warned me!" She shouted at Dolls.

Dolls displayed the countenance of someone coolly unimpressed. Wynonna had seen some crazy shit in her life time but this sickened her. She wondered what atrocities Dolls had seen to make him so unmoved.

"Where are Collins and Ryan? because **I think** I only counted enough body parts for two" Wynonna tried to stop breathing through her nose to avoid smelling the remnants of Mr and Mrs. Brookes.

"They were hung up around the back in the forest" Dolls walked out of the house and Wynonna reluctantly followed. She was not going to be able to keep down the contents of her stomach for much longer she thought.

In the patch of trees a little way from the house hung the bodies of Officer Ryan and Officer Collins. The police photographer was taking pictures and Wynonna noticed among the officers there that she was not the only one who looked ashen faced.

"Now according to the medical Examiner these guys were hung after they were dead, they both died-"

"From a single bullet wound to the head" Wynonna could see the marks on their foreheads.

"We need to go back to the office and look through Waverly's files to see if these deaths fit any of the Revenants " Dolls ordered.

"Yeh..." Wynonna was only half listening as she read the sign that had been hung around Officer Ryan's neck. She could practically taste the muffin she had had earlier in her throat.

The sign read: **The Lawe is Dead.**

'


	2. Chapter 2

Sheriff Neadley was muttering to himself as he drove back to town in his police squad car. "That bitch, that god-damn-" he thought of a number of colourful expletives to describe Wynonna Earp.

In the pitch dark even with the headlights on Neadley couldn't see more than a few feet in front of him. The darkness seemed to be pressing heavier than was normal around the car. Suddenly, there was a popping sound and the car started to shake on its axels. He cursed again, stopping the car abruptly and got out. He was on a deserted piece of dirt road which was the only way back to town from the Brooke's place. Fifty yards from where he stood was a small forest. Neadley grumbled even more expletives to his car.

What the hell was wrong now? He thought. He took out a flashlight from the car boot and went around the car, inspecting the wheels. The right front wheel was punctured; he looked at the left one, it was punctured too. They all were. He walked back a few yards to where he thought the popping sound had occurred. He pointed his flashlight at the ground to inspect the dirt. Right in the middle of the road he found a spike strip, they were issued to police to stop fugitive vehicles. He picked it up to examine it, completely unaware that there was someone-something watching from the nearby trees.

* * *

Wynonna and Dolls drove back to town; they were arguing over the radio. Wynonna wanted to listen to some classic 90's rock while Dolls preferred the music of silence. Wynonna put her feet up on the dash "You know we'd get along better if you removed the stick up your butt" she suggested.

"You don't take anything seriously" he said as he pushed her feet off the dash.

"I take the dulcet tones of Sir Mix-a-lot very seriously" she replied sarcastically.

"Once we get back to the office you need to comb through those records".

"Hitting the books, well there's a first time for everything, I suppose" she stretched out her arms. She knew this was going to be a long night, and not the _good_ kind. In the distance she noticed a stationary police car.

"Hey, isn't that Sheriff Neadley's car?" she pointed.

"Yes it is" Dolls said in a suspicious tone.

Dolls pulled the car up in front of it. There was no one in it as far as Wynonna could see. The car's door had been left ajar.

"Stay in the car" Dolls ordered as he got out.

"Like hell I am" Wynonna followed him.

Wynonna surveyed the area but could see nothing in the pressing dark. Dolls crouched down on the dirt road in order to inspect it. "These tracks lead into the woods," he indicated with his pocket flashlight. "We should call it-" suddenly a shout erupted from the trees. Both Dolls and Wynonna ran towards the source of the noise. They ran for several minutes until they came to a clearing. On their right they both heard rustling in the trees. Dolls looked at Wynonna and put a finger to his lips. She nodded as they approached the noise with caution. In this dark it would be too easy for somebody to attack them by surprise, hidden in the guise of night. Dolls and Wynonna slowly edged themselves around a cluster of overgrowth, both of them clasping tightly onto their guns. They didn't find an attacker but the limp body of Sheriff Neadley propped up against an evergreen.

"I'll check the perimeter, you check him" Dolls ordered as he took a 360 degree survey of the area.

Wynonna went over to the body. The guy had been pretty badly roughed up. She checked his wrist for a pulse.

"Ah crap," she said regretfully. "He's alive".

"I think we ran off whatever was attacking him," Dolls said when he returned from his inspection. "We won't find anybody in this dark," he holstered his weapon. "We need to take him back to the road and call an ambulance".

Between the two of them they managed to drag Neadley's fat ass back by the roadside.

"If whatever killed the Brookes and the officers was the one who attacked him he is a lucky basterd to be alive" Dolls observed.

"Well he's one of those things" Wynonna replied.

* * *

As they got back to the office Waverly was piling over her files looking for a likely candidate for the attacks. It was as easy as looking for a homicidal maniac in a list full of homicidal maniacs.

"The Brookes were dead before that call was made to the house," Dolls looked over the phone records. "Which means that the Brookes weren't the target, Officer Collins and Ryan were," He went over to the wall and pointed at the road where they had found Neadley. "And Neadley's tires were blown out on the only road from there back to town"

Wynonna followed Dolls train of thought "So their targeting law enforcement?"

Dolls nodded. Waverly looked up from her work with sudden concern, her mind immediately jumping to a certain red head.

"We need to call all the officers who are off duty and get them to the office, Wynonna tell Dawes to call them at their homes and get them here now" Dolls ordered and for once Wynonna took his direction without any wisecracking.

"Waverly, who would have the motive to go after the police" Dolls questioned.

Waverly looked over her work helplessly. "Really anyone of them, Wyatt killed thieves, murderers and gamblers; all of them had beef with law enforcement"

Wynonna briskly returned. "Dawes called them all to come in, he couldn't get through to an Officer Haught though" She informed them.

Waverly was visibly horror struck.

"Someone should head out to her place and check if she's alright," Dolls directed. "Ask Dawes where she's liv-"

"She's staying in a motel off Route 6"Waverly answered in a rush. Both Dolls and Wynonna looked at her in surprise.

"I'll head out there" Wynonna suggested.

"I'm coming too." Waverly insisted.

"Wave-" Wynonna protested.

"I'm coming with you, you can't stop me unless you want to hog tie me to this desk" Waverly insisted with surprising fierceness from someone so small.

Again Dolls and Wynonna looked at each other in surprise at Waverly's reaction. "I guess you're coming then" Wynonna reluctantly gave in.

* * *

They drove into the fine establishment that was the motel off Route 6. It was called GunMoll's, following the theme of many businesses in Purgatory of naming them something crime related, cashing in on the outlaw obsessed tourists that visited the town. The place was a notorious spot for affairs and hookers and it wasn't all that unfamiliar of a place to Wynonna. The motel was relatively deserted. Wynonna and Waverly went to the desk manager to ask what room Officer Nicole Haught was in. Wynonna's phone started to ring; she picked it up and started talking to Dolls about some development in the investigation. Waverly went on to the room. She found that the door to Nicole's room was just slightly ajar. She worried about what this might mean. She knew she should wait for her sister to come back but if anything had happened- well she didn't want to even think about it. Waverly slowly opened the door to a darkened empty room. She stepped inside. Waverly looked around the room. There was a freshly pressed pyjama top on the bed but no Nicole. Maybe she went out or something? Waverly thought.

"Freeze!" shouted a voice as the bathroom door was thrown open. There in the steaming light was Officer Nicole Haught. She had a towel tied around her and was dripping wet, obviously just fresh out of the shower. She had her gun pointed directly at Waverly.

"Waverly...?" she asked confused.

"Emm...hey" Waverly meekly waved.

They looked at each other for a long silent moment. "Do you always have a gun with you when you shower?" Waverly smiled nervously.

Nicole looked at her weapon and put it down "Only when I'm shampooing," she smiled warmly, the tension in the room noticeably easing. "What are you doing here? How did you get into my room?"she asked as she flipped back her soaking red hair.

"The door was left open" Waverly pointed at it.

"Oh crap" Nicole wiped her eyes "I'm just off a double shift because of the murders; I'm so tired I must have forgotten".

"That's why we're here, we think the person who killed the Brookes and Officer Collins and Ryan are targeting the police" Waverly explained. She tried to keep her eyes on Nicole's face and avoided looking and her _oh so_ close to being naked rest of her.

Nicole looked shocked by this new piece of information.

"Agent Dolls wants everyone back at the station where they'll be safe," Waverly didn't want to frighten her, if she even could be frightened. She had only known Officer Haught briefly but Waverly felt that she had in spades the same kind of fearlessness that Wynonna had. "You should get dressed and get some things together" she advised.

Nicole nodded, her mind was trying to process what Waverly was saying. Waverly just stood there in the room with her hands folded behind her back for several moments. There was another long awkward silence between them. Nicole looked at her with a meaningful grin and a raised eyebrow. Waverly suddenly realised that Nicole was waiting for her to leave so she could get dressed.

"Oh yeh...I'll just leave..." She blushed crimson and left the room.

Nicole laughed to herself.

* * *

In the car ride back, Wynonna drove and Nicole and Waverly sat in the back. Sharing such a confined space with her was making Waverly feel like her body heat had increased by like a gazillion degrees. Nicole beside her was rather nonplussed about the situation but gave Waverly a few sideways looks that made her smile even wider.

"Dolls got a call from the hospital that Neadley's awake, he's going to question him," Wynonna looked at them in the car rear view mirror and Waverly attempted to look more composed. "The best thing we can do is to get some sleep, Officer Haught the safest place for you right now is to stay with us".

"Call me Nicole, It's really nice of you to offer but I should get back to the office they'll need all the manpower they have to find Collins and Ryan's killers" Nicole eyebrows furrowed with concern.

"You've just worked a double shift, your good to no one if you're not 100 percent" Waverly pointed out.

"It's best to listen to my sister, she's usually always right" Wynonna advised, giving a wicked wink.

"Usually?" Waverly raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Okay always"

"Then I guess I'd better listen" Nicole looked at Waverly in a way that made her blush and suddenly become very interested in the scenery outside the car for the rest of the journey.

They drove up to the homestead; Wynonna deposited Nicole and Waverly while she parked the car in the outbuilding. Waverly nervously led Nicole to the front door.

"Home sweet home," Waverly pulled open the door. "It's not much but it's been in our family for more than a hundred years, I grew up here".

Nicole walked around the living room inspecting various objects and knick-knacks; she picked up a picture of the three Earp girls.

"Is that you?" she pointed to the smallest one in the picture with the missing front teeth.

"Yep that's me," Waverly anxiously rubbed her arms, she felt oddly exposed. "The teeth grew back"

"I can see that" Nicole grinned, her eyes practically sparkled. A heavy silence fell between them as they looked at each other. It was only broken by the arrival of Wynonna who was completely oblivious to the situation.

"So Nicole I guess you can sleep with Waverly"

"What?" Waverly was suddenly completely flustered. Nicole laughed under her breath.

Wynonna gave Waverly a perplexed look "you can share a room".

"Oh yeh..." Waverly tried to brush aside her momentary outburst.

"It's been a long time since I've had a sleep over" Nicole joked. Waverly meekly laughed.

"Well I'm hitting the hay" Wynonna yawned dramatically. "Remember no pillow fights!" she called from the hall.

"Ha ha..." Waverly laughed weakly. They were alone again.

"So... do you have bunk beds?" Nicole joked. "Are you a top or bottom kind of gal?"

"Wait..What?" Waverly was confused.

"Is this your room?" Nicole ignored her and made her way down the hall to the door papered with clippings of flowers and cats.

"Yeh..." Waverly was getting more unnerved by the second.

Nicole opened the door to a medium sized room with two single floral duvet beds. The room was very... pink Nicole thought.

"Do you have a preference?" Nicole asked.

"Preference?" Waverly anxiously asked.

"Which bed is yours?"

"Oh... the one on the left"

Nicole smiled and took the other bed. Waverly turned to close the bedroom door and let out a long quiet breath to calm herself. She had the feeling that this was going to be the longest night of her life.


	3. Chapter 3

Waverly eyes were drooping as she looked over her research in the office the next day. She could barely concentrate on what she was doing. She hadn't had a wink of sleep all night. Just knowing that Nicole was sleeping in the same room with her had made every cell in her body vibrate.

In the background, Dolls and Wynonna were discussing the new breakthroughs in the investigation. Dolls looked over the newly delivered forensic report on the Brookes murder scene. His eyes furrowed as he read it.

"The ballistics in this report doesn't make any sense" he was noticeably frustrated.

"This is supernatural, nothing makes any sense" Wynonna pointed out.

Dolls ignored her. "The shell casings they took from the sitting room wall are the ones shot from Collins gun but they are also the same bullets that killed Collins and Ryan"

"So the killer got hold of Collins gun and shot them" Wynonna concluded.

"According to this report there is gunshot residue on Officer Collins hand so he was the one who fired the gun" Dolls was for once noticeably flummoxed.

Wynonna reflected on this disturbing development. "So we're talking about a Revenant who can what? Control people's minds?" Just when she thought it couldn't get any weirder, it got frickin weirder.

"Either that or they can bend bullets with their mind" Dolls theorized. Wynonna knew he was being completely serious because the man had had his funny bone removed at birth. This new notion was not comforting at all. They had never faced this level of supernatural fucked up shit before; this was calling for the big guns.

"What about the crime scene? is there any evidence left behind by the things that did this?" Wynonna questioned.

"They found one pair of footprints at the Brookes house that didn't match any of the deceased" Dolls read from the report.

"One person did that?" she said in disbelief, pointing to the grotesque crime scene photos that made her physically gag to look at.

"One demon" Dolls corrected her. He looked over the crime scene photos again. "They wanted to make a statement" he theorized.

"If that statement was I'm a crazy blood-thirsty sociopath, he succeeded" Wynonna quipped. "But when you talked to Neadley last night he said he was attacked by two guys' right?"

"Yeh...," Dolls contemplated something for a long moment. "The more and more I look at it my gut tells me this was a two man job, a team" Dolls eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

"Waverly do we have anybody who fits that..., Waverly!" Dolls shouted to get her attention. She had fallen asleep using her pile of records as a pillow.

"Sorry...What did you say?" Waverly opened her eyes comically wide in an attempt to look more alert.

Dolls shook his head in frustration. "A two man team, do we have anything on the books that corresponds to that" He questioned.

"Oh...I think...I saw...," she was flustered as she looked through the stacks in front of her. "Here it is!" she pulled out two files and handed them to Dolls.

"Frank and Tom McLaury" Dolls read the files with a look of sudden recognition.

"Who are Frank and Tom McLaury?" Wynonna asked. Both Dolls and Waverly looked at her with expressions of great incredulity.

"What?"

"Do you know anything about your family history?" Dolls asked.

"What's there too know, there's a curse, there's an enchanted gun, yada yada, mission to kill demons" she racked off the important points of their colourful family history.

"Frank and Tom McLaury," Dolls gave her a long look of disapproval. "Are two of four men who your grandfather killed at the O.K Corral in 1881". They all looked at the pictures of two young men. One was clean shaven, the other had a moustache and a long goatee, and both were very handsome. "They were a two man team of thieves; they had a number of run-ins with the law-"

"-and a long running feud with the Earps" Waverly continued knowledgably.

"These could be our guys" Dolls pointed at the pictures with conviction.

Wynonna looked over the pictures of the men and then at the crime scene photographs, a plan started to formulate in her head. "If we want to catch these guys, might I suggest a softly softly catchy monkey approach?"

"English, Earp" Dolls said exasperated.

"I'm sorry did they not teach you it at the Black Badge School for incurably tight-asses?," Wynonna wisecracked. "Their after law enforcement, so we set up one of the Officers as bait and then we catch these guys" she explained her plan.

Dolls ruminated over the idea for a long moment. "That isn't a terrible idea" Dolls reluctantly acknowledged.

"Thank you" she replied sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

"They probably saw us in the woods when we got Neadley so it can't be either of us, we need someone we can trust among the officers..." Dolls began to plan.

Waverly stomach turned as she realised where this was going.

* * *

Officer Haught had been more than willing to be the bait in Wynonna's plan. Dolls didn't give her the full details about who she was actually being bait for. Waverly and he had a heated argument over this point. She felt that Nicole had the right to know since it was _her_ neck that was going to be on the line. He argued that knowledge of the Revenants had to be kept in the closest circle possible to prevent what happened in Mexico happening in Purgatory. Waverly was not convinced.

The plan that Dolls and Wynonna had conceived was to make as big a display as possible to get the McLaury brothers attention. Dolls was going to send a call out over the police radio because he believed that's how the Revenants had been able to track the law enforcement. Nicole was to make her way to a remote farmhouse in a police squad car with full lights and sirens on. Wynonna and Dolls would be waiting to ambush the McLaury brothers and then bye, bye Revenants. It was simple, how could anything possibly go wrong? Waverly tried to comfort herself with that knowledge.

As Dolls and Wynonna set up their arsenal in the office Waverly went to see Nicole who was getting dressed in the changing rooms of the police station. Waverly stood in the doorway, Nicole was sitting on the bench tying her shoelaces on her boots. She just stood there and watched her for a long moment.

"You do know you don't have to do this" Waverly pointed out.

Nicole looked up at her and smiled. Waverly realised she was never going to get over how she looked in that uniform.

"It's my job" Nicole pointed out matter of factly.

"These guys aren't like normal criminals," Waverly wanted to really get across the dangers she was about to be facing. "You could get yourself killed" she said bluntly.

Nicole's eyebrows furrowed "If I can do anything to catch the guys who killed Ryan, Collins and the Brookes, I have to do it"

"Just...just promise me..." What could Nicole promise? She had no control over what was going to happen. She didn't even know what she was up against and that terrified Waverly.

"I'll be o.k." Nicole grinned with confidence in an attempt to try and reassure Waverly which made her feel worse. She wasn't the one who needed looking after. Waverly wasn't just going to let her go like this. She slowly walked over to Nicole and placed her hand over hers. Nicole looked mildly surprised by her sudden boldness.

"I know you'll be o.k. but just... just be careful" Waverly squeezed her hand but didn't let it go; she stood there holding her hand for a very long time.

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	4. Chapter 4

Wynonna, Dolls and Waverly began to set up their arsenal for the ambush. It was past midnight but as Dolls pointed out the full moon would provide good visibility. They would be able to see anyone approaching. They were using an abandoned farm just outside town for the ambush. As Waverly looked around she wryly observed it would have been an ideal setting for a horror movie. She tried to shake off the deep sense of uneasiness she was experiencing but it was impossible. She knew there was so many ways this could go wrong no matter what Dolls or Wynonna might say. She would never forgive herself if Nicole got caught in the crosshairs of a Revenant attack.

"Okay, does everyone know what they're doing?" Dolls looked to Wynonna and then to Waverly for confirmation.

"Yeeessss," Wynonna rolled her eyes. "We've gone over this plan a _million_ times".

Waverly had to agree with her sister. Dolls had literally drilled the plan into their heads.

"You're staking out the east side of the property, I'm taking the west and Waverly takes the south. Nicole comes, Revenants follow, Bang Bang and a highway to hell for some Revenant scumbags".

Dolls face went from exasperation to reluctant amusement as Wynonna explained the plan.

"Okay, weapons then". Dolls started doling out the weapons. The arsenal they had at their disposal was impressive. There were rifles, smoke gas, bulletproof vests, and hand grenades. They could take on a small army with this stuff Waverly observed. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that. She picked up her trusty shotgun. She might not be able to send a Revenant to hell but she sure as hell could fill them up with a lot of holes.

Wynonna walked round to her truck to take out some stuff from the back; Waverly followed her and noticed a tarp covering a large crate in the back.

'What's that?' Waverly asked.

Wynonna looked over to see if Dolls was within earshot before answering.

'A little toy I brought just incase' Wynonna whispered conspiratorially to her sister.

From the way her sister was acting Waverly guessed it was not Dolls preapproved. She wasn't sure if this should scare her even more or be a small comfort that they had something else up their sleeves for if things went bad. Waverly reminded herself that things _always_ went bad.

Dolls walked over to them as he strapped on his bulletproof vest.

"Everyone ready?" he asked.

The Earp sisters nodded. He handed each of them a walkie-talkie. "Radio silence unless you see something" he instructed.

"If everyone does their part this _will_ work," Dolls stressed the last part. "Let's do this".

That was as rousing a speech as they could expect from Dolls.

"I think he means Yay team and don't fuck up!" Wynonna fake cheered.

Dolls gave her a glib smile in reply. He then went to his car and on a borrowed police scanner he sent out an A.P.B on the farmhouse to Nicole. Dolls thought that the radio was how the Revenants had known where the police were always going to be. They must have been listening in on the police scanners. If he was right then they'd follow Nicole to the farm.

"Let's get into position" Dolls instructed.

All three of them headed to their positions so they would be able to see if anyone approached from any direction. The night was so eerily quiet that even from miles away Waverly could hear Nicole in her police car before she ever saw it. The red and blue light show that Nicole was putting on would be impossible for any Revenant watching to miss. Waverly's eyes never left that car.

Nicole as planned pulled into the drive way of the farmhouse. She parked right outside the front door. There were a few silent seconds that passed where nothing happened. Then Waverly heard two beeps on her radio, it was a signal from Dolls to Nicole for her to get out of her car and head to the house. Waverly's breath caught as she saw the flash of Nicole's red hair as she got out of the car and made her way to the door. Waverly looked all around her to see if anyone was approaching but she couldn't see anything. She turned back to look at Nicole entering the house and heading into the front room. The light in the front room turned on and in the break in the net curtains Waverly could clearly see Nicole's outline. Now all they had to do was wait. Waverly was constantly searching the landscape for anything and then anxiously looking back at the front window of the house. Every sound of an owl or rustling of a branch made her skittish. But no one ever appeared. After two solid hours of waiting the three of them were getting restless.

Waverly's radio buzzed. "Do any of you see anything?" came Dolls voice.

"There's nothing" came Wynonna's reply.

"Nothing here either" Waverly answered on her radio.

There were several minutes of radio silence. Waverly guessed Dolls was trying to figure out their next move.

"We'll give it another hour and then if there's no sign we'll regroup at the office" Dolls instructed.

Waverly was feeling extremely happy that nothing had happened. She felt a little guilty that she was so happy their plan had failed. But if Nicole was safe at the end of the day she didn't really care. Nicole had been extremely insistent in playing her part Waverly considered. It was something she really admired about her. Maybe after this they could-

Bang! came a sound in the distance, on the far side of the farmhouse from where Waverly stood.

What the hell was that? Waverly listened.

"There's something coming from this side I think!" Wynonna's voice came over the radio. It sounded breathless as if she was running.

"I'm coming" was Dolls reply.

Waverly could see two figures streaking to something in the distance. Waverly craned her eyes to see if there was a third figure but in the dark she couldn't see anything clearly.

"What is it?" Waverly asked anxiously over the radio.

"It….was….just...a… dog" Wynonna replied in between deep breaths.

Waverly heart had gone into overdrive for a second. She took a breath of relief and instinctively looked back at the house. It had changed. There was no light on and no Nicole that she could see.

"Dolls!" Waverly immediately went on her radio. "The lights are out in the house!". Waverly was scared. She hadn't felt this scared since she was six years old.

"Waverly stay where you are, me and Wynonna will-"

Whatever Dolls was saying Waverly was completely deaf to it. She started running towards the house.

"Waverly!" She could hear them warning her but she was closer to the house then either of them. She went through the front door and straight into the front room. It was pitch black. It took several seconds for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. She was frantically looking through the room for any sign of Nicole. Any caution about running into a Revenant was forgotten. The room was cluttered with broken furniture. There was no sign of anyone standing. Behind a dirty overturned sofa Waverly spotted a pair of familiar black boots.

'Nicole!' Waverly went over to the body. Nicole's eyes were closed. Waverly's breath started coming fast. Please be okay. Please be okay. She chanted in her head. She noticed there was no blood. That must be a good sign Waverly reasoned frantically with herself. A six week course she had taken in first aid kicked into action. She got on her knees beside Nicole and put her ear close to her mouth and waited to feel or hear a breath. It took her a few seconds to hear it over her own pumping blood, but it definitely was a breath. She was only slightly relieved, she couldn't be completely sure of any damage done. Wynonna and Dolls arrived with their guns drawn.

"Clear the rooms, I'll look at Nicole" Dolls instructed Wynonna. She nodded and went to the back of the house.

"Here Waverly…" Dolls spoke very gently. "I need to check her". They looked at each other in complete understanding. He knew what Nicole meant to her.

Waverly weakly nodded. She was holding back tears as she held Nicole's hand. Dolls got on his knees to examine Nicole; he took out a small flashlight and checked her pupil response. Waverly waited anxiously for his assessment.

He looked at Waverly with a kind smile. "She's going to be fine, she's just been knocked out" he assured her. He looked around the room for the source of the blow.

Waverly looked at Nicole's face and thanked god. She couldn't help the tears rolling down her face in relief. She squeezed Nicole's hand and hoped she knew that she was with her.

"There's nobody here" Wynonna said when she returned.

That didn't mean much when it came to Revenants Waverly thought. They could be hiding inside the walls, under the floor boards, or they could even be invisible.

"We need to get her out of here" Waverly urgently addressed this to Dolls. Waverly knew Nicole needed to go to hospital even with Dolls okay.

He nodded in agreement but suddenly there was a bang as the front door slammed shut.

"What the…" Wynonna looked at the door.

Suddenly the door was in flames, then the windows and the walls. In less than ten seconds they were in the middle of an inferno.

"Shit, we need to get that door down!" Dolls shouted over the flames. He ran across the room to the door. The smoke was starting to blind Waverly. She coughed as the room filled with fumes. She desperately held onto Nicole who was still completely unresponsive. They needed to leave now she desperately thought. She tried to pull Nicole up.

"Waverly!" Wynonna shouted in panic. She ran over to them on the floor covering her mouth and nose with her sleeve.

Dolls tried again and again to kick down the door. He was already sweating profusely. The room felt like ten thousand degrees. Waverly normally would have been frightened for her own life but all her fear was directed towards Nicole. There was a thud as the door crashed open from Dolls kick. Between Wynonna and Waverly they tried to drag Nicole towards the entrance. Dolls ran over to them.

"Get out, I'll take her!" Dolls picked her limp body up in a fireman's lift. Wynonna and Waverly followed behind him. As they got out the front door they ran far away from the burning building. Waverly collapsed onto her knees; in the fresh night air she took a deep breath and coughed up what felt like her lungs. Dolls took Nicole and laid her down carefully on the ground.

"Dolls your leg!" Wynonna shouted in concern as she noticed his trousers had caught fire. He dropped and rolled on the grass to try and extinguish it. Waverly half crawled half stumbled her way over to where Nicole lay.

She looked over Nicole, she was black from smoke. She carefully pushed the hair away from her face which had been slightly singed at the ends. Nicole opened her eyes at Waverly's touch and weakly spluttered.

"Waverly….?" Nicole asked weakly. Waverly tearfully smiled. Nicole started coughing violently and Waverly helped her upper body up to make it easier for her to get everything out of her system. All four of them sat breathlessly on the grass and watched the house they had just escaped collapse.

"Are you okay?" Wynonna asked her sister in concern.

"Yeh" Waverly smiled. Wynonna pulled her into a deep hug. After about five minutes she finally released her.

"You take care of Nicole, I'll help Dolls" Wynonna gave her sister a knowing wink. Waverly might have blushed under normal circumstances but feeling self conscious about what her sister might think about her just seemed irrelevant now. Wynonna went over to Dolls to help him with his leg; it had surprisingly escaped from being badly burnt. Waverly took care of Nicole. They both wiped the soot off each other's smiling faces.

"They knew we were here" Dolls said as he hobbled over to them. They all knew they had fallen into a trap.

"What happened in there?" Waverly gently asked Nicole.

Nicole took Waverly's hand and ran it over a large bump that had grown on the top of her head. "I was…" she coughed violently. "hit over the head with something".

"Did you see who did it?" Wynonna asked.

"Yeh, it was…him" Nicole's eyes widened in shock as she pointed into the night.

"Nice night for a bonfire" came a drawling voice from the darkness. A man appeared from nowhere, as if the night had just birthed him from the darkness. He was wearing an old suit, a hat and an old timey pocket watch. He had a pipe in his mouth and his smile made his moustache curl. He looked at the four of them lying on the ground. Nicole pulled Waverly back protectively.

"Now let's see here... the law _and_ the Earps," his smile became even wider. "We really are spoiled for choice, brother". He seemed to be addressing the very blackness of the night.


	5. Chapter 5

He took the pipe out of his mouth and carefully put it into his pocket. He seemed to be really enjoying himself. The expression 'the cat that got the cream' crossed Waverly's mind.

"I should introduce myself since we are gonna be _so much more_ than acquaintances," He said politely. "My name is Frank Findley McLaury". He bowed his head to each of the women like any good southern gentleman would.

Waverly looked to Dolls and Wynonna for some kind of sign of action. As long as he kept talking he wasn't killing them. Not yet anyway.

"What I mean when I say we're gonna be more than just acquaintances is because let me tell ya, there is _nothin_ more intimate than a man and his victims," At the word victim Nicole took Waverly's hand. "Ya see, they know each other better than lovers. A person never really knows someone until they feel the lifeblood pourin out of them like a dam breakin in a monsoon." He was really getting into the swing of his speech now. "Ya take a measure of a man-excuse me, or a woman-from how they die, do they scream? do they cry? Do they call out for their Mama?" He paused to stare at each one of them individually. "I wonder which one yall be?"

He stared at them quizzically as if trying to figure it out. When his eyes fell on Waverly Nicole clasped her hand even harder. Waverly noticed Dolls and Wynonna communicating to each other with their eyes, apparently unknowingly to McLaury. They discreetly nodded to each other in agreement.

"That was a nice soliloquy, I thought only Shakespeare could bore me to death" Wynonna said sarcastically. She glared at him with a searing hatred.

He laughed at that. "Wynonna Earp," He grinned at her. "You have the Earp's sharp wit, sharp enough to cut a man in half". He flashed his teeth.

As his attention was focused on Wynonna, Dolls began to shift away.

"I guess I inherited something other than a curse" she replied. Her hand twitched towards her gun that lay only a few inches away.

Waverly understood what they were trying to do.

"Wyatt!" Waverly blurted out to try and bring his attention away from Wynonna. He turned to stare at her. Wynonna gave her a warning look.

"Yes Darlin, you have something to share with the class" He gestured with his arms.

"He... killed you at the O.K Corral, everyone knows his side of the story...What's yours?" Waverly heard the deep inhaling of breath behind her. She had no idea what Nicole must be thinking about all of this.

"Now that is a good question!" he really became animate at that. "Because that is the root of why all of us are here today!" he gesticulated at them all. "Ya see, we were cattle thieves me and my brother, and your granddaddy the _gawd,_ _damn,_ _legend,_ that is Wyatt Earp was the law man. We were natural born enemies ya could say. And from this was born a feud between my family and yours. An eye for an eye. That's how we lived." He reminisced. "Your granddaddy and Doc Holliday attacked us like bandits, they killed me and my brother." He pointed to his chest. "We came into the world the same way and we went out of the world the same way" he reflected.

"Where's your brother now?" Waverly asked.

He paused for a moment. "I keep him close" McLaury put his hand on his heart. "He's always in here".

Wynonna finger touched the handle of Peacemaker.

"Our family feud has gone on for generations. It seems unfair that the children have to pay the price for their ancestor's crimes, but the bible says, an eye for an eye. So..." he looked intently at Waverly. "Which one will I take, the left or the right?" he took a lethal looking hunting knife from his belt.

"You touch her and I will kill you" Nicole said fiercely. Waverly felt the force behind those words. She really meant them.

"Well hold on now!" he smiled putting his hands up defensively "I know you're invested in that pretty face, tell ya what. I'll be generous and I'll kill you first before I cut out her eyes" he grinned.

Dolls suddenly ran to tackle him. But as his body was just about to make contact McLaury disappeared. He reappeared a few feet away.

He laughed. "This ain't the O.K Corral today, son" he said. "Your sneaky lawman tactics ain't gonna work here".

Wynonna reached for her gun and started firing off shots at McLaury but he was ready. He reappeared and disappeared all over the place. He was like some kind of weird television frequency that buzzed in and out of focus. Wynonna was getting angrier by the second. While McLaury was laughing to draw more of her frustration. Dolls joined in the shooting, he managed to clip the right shoulder of McLaury.

Wynonna shouted to Nicole and Waverly "We've got this! Take Waverly and go!"

Nicole took Waverly by the hand and started running towards the cars. Waverly looked back at her sister and Dolls who were struggling to fight off McLaury.

"We can't leave them!" insisted Waverly.

"We're not," Nicole got into the truck's driver seat. "I've got this". Nicole winked.

I think I'm in love. Waverly smiled.

* * *

After a few silent minutes without the reappearance of McLaury Dolls and Wynonna were convinced it might be over but then-

"Wynonna you're on fire!" Dolls cried as he ran to her. She had suddenly just burst into flames before his eyes.

"Dolls I'm fine, what the hell are you talking about!" Wynonna stared at him as if he'd gone crazy.

Dolls saw Wynonna engulfed in a hideous fire, she blackened like a piece of paper. He was completely confused. She wasn't crying out in pain even though she was burning alive. He blinked and saw Wynonna completely turned back to normal.

Cold laughs could be heard on the night air. McLaury reappeared, he took Dolls by the throat and threw him several feet in the air. He landed with an audible crunch on the ground. He was unconscious.

McLaury turned to Wynonna. "When your granddaddy killed my brother he wasn't even armed. There is _nothin_ more cowardly than shootin an unarmed man." He explained. "And then your granddaddy _lied_ about it. He got away with it because of a badge. Just because he was a law man made him above it all. He _deservered_ to be cursed. He deserves to be in the hell he sent us to." His easy nature was falling away to reveal a deep anger. But then he shook it off and went back to smiling. "Ya've got a gun in your hand so I'm givin ya a better chance than Wyatt Earp ever gave my brother".

It was like something from an old western. They alone faced against each other, guns drawn. Wynonna stared at him, her finger twitching. A roll of sweat ran down her brow. He flexed his fingers. Her vision seemed to blur. He was a misty apparition. With cat like reflexes Wynonna turned the gun on him before he even lifted a finger. Her gun glowed red and she shot him.

She gave a satisfied smile as she was convinced the bullet had met its mark. But McLaury shimmered in and out of focus. In his place he was replaced with a wide eyed Waverly. She looked at Wynonna incredulously. Then Waverly looked down at her t-shirt with its quickly spreading red stain.

"Waverly!" Wynonna cried she ran to her sister who fell into her arms. She laid her carefully on the ground. Wynonna desperately tried to stem the flow of blood with her hands.

"Wave... please... I'm so sorry I didn't mean too..." Wynonna cried as she tried to will the blood back into her sister's body. Waverly looked at her with her innocent eyes. They closed as she bled out.


	6. Chapter 6

"Waverly, please!" Wynonna cried over the body of her dead sister.

Dolls crawled over to her, blood running down his face.

"Wynonna, Wynonna!" Dolls put his hand on her shoulder. "Look at me" he insisted.

She ignored him and continued to cradle the body of her sister. It was like she was hearing him from the bottom of a well. Waverly was dead. She had done it again. She was cursed to kill everyone she ever loved. These thoughts were spiralling in her head.

He gently put his hands either side of her face. "It's just a trick; you need to focus on me Wynonna" he said calmly.

A trick? She took encouragement from his words and tried to focus. She looked into his eyes through her tears and trusted what he said. She looked back at her hands which were now completely free of blood. Dead Waverly had disappeared.

She heard a click above her head. McLaury stood with his gun pointed at her. Both Wynonna and Dolls could do nothing.

"I wanted to take this slow but times running out" he said as he looked as his pocket watch. "It really was fun". His eyes turned a burning red as he went in for the kill.

Bang.

Wynonna looked up to see the shocked faces of Nicole and Waverly behind the wheel of her truck. They had just hit McLaury at full speed. He tumbled over the windscreen and bounded off the top of the car landing behind the truck. Nicole pulled hard on the breaks and they came to a sudden stop. She then took the clutch and quickly backed over him hearing the satisfying double bump as they ran him over again.

"I think you got him" Waverly looked over to a white-faced Nicole.

They both quickly got out of the car. All four of them walked to the back of the truck to see the heap that was Frank McLaury. He looked like...well someone who had just been run over twice by a truck. All of them were hesitant about getting any closer to him. Dolls drew his weapon and cautiously went over to inspect him. He wasn't unconscious. He had blood running from his nose into his moustache and goatee. He slowly got to his feet and they could hear the sickening crunch of his broken bones as he tried to stand. He looked like a mannequin puppet whose strings had got all tangled up.

"You think ya got me,' he drawled. "Ya don't know anything yet".

He multiplied before their eyes. They were surrounded by Frank McLaurys. They couldn't know for sure which was real and which ones were merely mirages.

Dolls and Nicole started running off shots that had no effect.

"Hold him off for as long as you can!" shouted Wynonna.

She ran to the back of the truck and lifted the tarp to reveal the crate. She opened it up. Oh sweet baby! She thought as she took out a very real mother fucking flamethrower. She strapped the tank onto her back.

"Stand the fuck back, everybody!"Wynonna smiled as she made her big reveal.

Dolls, Nicole and Waverly were wide eyed but the most satisfying expression came from the faces of all the McLaury's who were suddenly fearful.

"You don't know jack shit!" she said and with that she released a halo of fire around them. The fake Frank McLaury's turned to mist but the one solid body she made contact with burst into flames.

Nicole and Waverly flinched as the screaming McLaury was engulfed in flames. The smell was horrible like roasted sweet meats. It didn't take long before he fell to the ground in a smouldering mess.

Wynonna turned off the flamethrower. She walked calmly over to the now sizzling remains of Frank Findley McLaury. His blackened twig-like hand tried to reach up to her.

"Consider that a taste test of what hell's gonna feel like". She took Peacemaker from her belt. It glowed red and she shot him in the head. A hell hole opened up and swallowed him whole.

* * *

The victory had taken a lot out of them. Waverly and Nicole helped bandage Dolls and Wynonna's wounds with a first aid kit from Nicole's police car. As Waverly wiped Wynonna's cuts she caught her sister staring at her intensely.

"What is it?" Waverly asked worriedly. Was it delayed shock? she thought.

"Nothin" Wynonna replied. There were tears in the corner of her eyes. She suddenly pulled her sister into a suffocating hug. Nicole and Dolls laughed.

When Wynonna finally released her, Waverly felt like she had broken several of her ribs. Wynonna ruffled her hair laughing.

"By the way, where the hell did you get that flamethrower?" Dolls asked half accusationally half impressed.

"The same place I get all my bedside toys" Wynonna replied mischievously and winked.

As Wynonna and Dolls quietly talked with each other, Waverly couldn't help but notice that there was a deep intimacy between the two. She walked over to Nicole who was cleaning her burns she had received in the house fire.

"Here let me do that," Waverly took the alcohol wipes from Nicole and gently wiped the cuts and burns on her arms. She was feeling immensely guilty about everything that had happened. "Nicole..." Waverly knew she had a lot of explaining to do. "you see that guy-"

"-Is a 150 year old demon that was killed by your grandfather and is back because of a curse on your family" Nicole said calmly.

Waverly looked at her both shocked and impressed that she was being so cavalier about it all.

"I've had an idea about it for a while Wave" Nicole explained. "Give me some credit, I am a cop after all" she said coolly. Nicole looked at her and to Waverly's surprise she saw no hurt or anger in Nicole's eyes. Instead Nicole was actually smiling at her.

Waverly practically beamed.

Wynonna walked over to the large burnt space of grass where Frank McLaury had disappeared.

Dolls walked over to stand beside her. He put his hand on her shoulder. "We did good" Dolls said as he looked from Wynonna, to Waverly and finally giving a nod of recognition to Nicole.

"Yeh" Wynonna said thoughtfully. She had thought she had lost everything tonight Wynonna reflected. She paused for a long moment "I guess you could even say he fought the law and the law won. Am I right?" She punned, returning to her usual sarcastic self.

Wynonna smiled at the embarrassed grimaces of her friends and sister.

* * *

They drove back to town in their cars. Waverly sat in the passenger seat of Nicole's squad car. They held hands and laughed the whole way back. They were still running high off the adrenaline of their very Thelma and Louise moment. Though hopefully they would avoid driving off a cliff Waverly thought. Meanwhile the collapsed smouldering remains of the farmhouse and the surrounding fields returned to their natural quiet state of desertion.

But it wasn't deserted.

Someone had been there to witness the entire dramatic episode.

He slowly made his way from his hideout in a clutch of trees towards the burnt spot in the ground. He dug his boot into the spot and turned over a loose piece of sod. He stood their contemplating it for a long time. Tom McLaury and his brother Frank had always done everything together. When they used to raid for cattle it was always Tom's job to create a distraction. Since they had become resurrected Tom had gained immense powers which they had used to their advantage. Like making people see things that weren't there. Tom was always there helping his brother from the sidelines. But now his brother had gone and they were separated for the first time in his life. It was a price that had to be paid his brother had told him. There were bigger players in the game and if they wanted to play they had to make a sacrifice. Tom had seen what those 'bigger players' had done to Mr. and Ms. Brookes and knew they had no choice. His brother had trusted Tom to do what was necessary to get him back.

Tom knew what he had to do.

The Earp heir needed to die for the Revenants to resurrect.


End file.
